Bounties Still Abound- Local Tomatoes, Corn and Rainbow Trout From Just Down the Road

The farmers market in Ann Arbor is still looking amazing! Squash and kale are appearing along side beautiful corn, tomatoes and tons of other goodies from the nearby farms.

Today’s recipe, Pancetta Wrapped Grilled Rainbow Trout, uses local farm fresh tomatoes, corn and a farm fresh fish from just 38 miles away, just west of Jackson MI. Indian Brook Trout farm is getting whole gorgeous rainbows to us often on the same day that they’re caught! Owner “Farmer” Tom Richmond tells me that one of the biggest aquifers in Michigan supplies his ponds through artisan springs and that extensive testing through M.S.U. has shown his ponds to be in fine shape for raising trout.

We’ve been searching for years to find the quality of trout that we sold in the 80’s from Komoka Trout Farm in Ontario, Canada. Twice a week the Boogerman brothers would harvest then deliver fish that were still in rigor and shining the colors of the rainbow – pure buttery beauty! The brothers, Ab and Dab we called them, Abner and Don were their real names, asked if they could use our name, Monahan’s Seafood, for a retail store that they were opening near their farm. I asked why they didn’t want to use their own name for the store? Boogerman’s Fish? Oh yea, I understood. So for a short time there was a Monahan’s Seafood in Collingwood, Ontario that eventually went out of business. Soon a big corporate trout farming operation bought out the Boogermans and our stiff little beauties were no longer available.

There are small trout farms scattered around the state that either don’t produce enough or just don’t distribute out of their area, believe me I’ve searched. Fish, whether wild or farmed will have the flavor of the water that they live in and the feed available to them. Sometimes pond-raised fish can have a little bit of a muddy or grassy taste to them. Komoka trout had a nice clean flavor but these Indian Brook trout have a pure natural flavor that is the closest to a wild rainbow that we’ve ever tasted. We sell these fish whole dressed but can bone them out for stuffing too!